In law school I loved criminal law, constitutional law and legal ethics. Yes, legal ethics. Before becoming a lawyer in New York and Massachusetts I had to take a single course in law school about what I was agreeing to when I became a lawyer and things to do to avoid being sued for malpractice.

The reason I loved this class was because ethics are a grey area, but because of the need to regulate the profession it was necessary to often make it black and white.

Learning black and white ethics, thinking about potential scenarios and arguing about whether the rules were correct was quite fun for me. When I was sworn into the bar, I agreed to these ethical rules, for better or worse.

Lawyers are one of the most hated group of professionals, second only, at this time, to healthy living bloggers. The FTC regulates a small part of blogging already, so it’s not out of the question that more rules are to come.

Some argue that blogging is an online journal and therefore, bloggers owe no one any duty of care. Others say that bloggers should be responsible when they write, thinking about how their words will impact others.

Let’s suppose, for the sake of this post, that there were professional rules of responsibility for bloggers. Say, for example, anyone who has any kind of advertisement on their blog or gets paid in some way for their blog needs to adhere to these standards in order to be an official blogger. You get a nice seal of approval on your blog if you adhere, and you can’t get any payment from your blog if you don’t. What would those rules look like?

I know it’s hard. Ethics are grey and I am asking for black and white, but be specific. What do you think is reasonable? Use specific examples, naming bloggers (and providing links, if possible) for positive examples and excluding names for “what not to do” examples. I do not want this to be a bashing party. The purpose is to start an adult conversation about this.